SIR JAGADISH CHANDRA BOSE MEMORIAL ADDRESS

摘要

When by some fortunate chance I came into an intimate contact with Sir Jagadish, he was in the prime of his youth and I was very nearly of his age. At that moment his mind seemed entranced with vision of the living creatures' fundamental kinship with the world of the unconscious. He was busy in employing his marvelous inventiveness in coaxing mute Nature to yield her hidden language. The response which he received through skillful questionings revealed to him glimpses of the mystery of an existence that concealed its meaning underneath a contradiction of its appearance. I had the rare privilege of sharing the daily delight of his constant surprises. I believe, poets inherit the primeval age in their temperament when things in their infant simplicity revealed a common feature. Somehow these lovers of Maya feel the joy of their being spread all over the creation, which makes them indulge in seeking the analogy of the living in things that appear lifeless. Such an attitude of mind may not in all cases be based upon any definite belief, animistic or pantheistic; it may be merely a make-believe, as we notice in children's play which owes its origin to the lurking tendency in our subconscious mind to ascribe life-energy to all activities in the natural world. I was made familiar from my boyhood with the Upanishad which, in its primitive intuition, proclaims that whatever there is in this world vibrates with life, the life that is one in the infinite.